Bed Bug Hunting Dogs

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Bed Bug Hunting Dogs

We have all heard the saying, “a dog is a man’s best friend.” This has been proven over and over again. Dogs are trained to sniff out drugs, explosives, and they can even detect seizures and cancer in people. These are just some of the services they perform for us.

With the explosion of bed bugs all over the country and especially in hotels, it was mind boggling to read that dogs have been trained to find bed bugs. They perform the task efficiently, quickly, and precisely. In a hotel room these dogs can check the room in as little as two minutes. This is great because we live in a very mobile world now. A room can be free of bed bugs but the next visitor may inadvertently carry the pest with them on their clothing or luggage.

When the dogs locate bed bugs the room must be disinfected and the best thing to do is burn the mattress. It is expensive for a hotel but it would be far worse for someone to have a bad allergic reaction to the bed bug bites and the negative attention that would come from that. The dogs themselves are Labrador mixes. Many hotels are having their hotel rooms checked as often as every three months. Any longer and a full fledged infestation could occur.

When you are planning a vacation don’t tell yourself if you pay more for a room there will be no bed bugs like there would be at a less expensive place. A really mind boggling thought is imagining between twenty-five to thirty people from anywhere in the world will be sleeping in an average hotel bed in only one month’s time. With the rate of adult reproduction, that is how fast an infestation can happen.

Bed bugs survive by feeding off the blood from your body. An amazing fact is they can live almost a whole year without feeding. When DDT was outlawed, it wasn’t as easy to eradicate these pests. The result is even the most elegant hotels and homes are susceptible to these bugs. Thanks to bed bug sniffing Labs, finding bed bugs is easier, faster, and helps to prevent infestation of a room, hotel, or apartment complex.

Today, bed bug infestations carry consequences with them. Although they carry no disease and are mainly the cause of itchy sleepless nights, bed bugs do cause allergic reactions in many people. The reaction is caused from the bed bug’s saliva. Not only can these bites swell and turn red, they can develop a wheal with a white center; that is most probably an infection. Besides the horrendous itching, some individuals can develop asthma attacks. Now, we have someone who could need corticosteroids for swelling and itching and treatment for an asthma attack; I think these little bugs have shown they mean business.

Of course, you know the inevitable. One woman staying in a Boston hotel had a very severe reaction to bed bug bites she received in the hotel. She sued the hotel and was compensated for her injuries and ordeal.

When traveling, one thing you can do is check and to see if the mattresses and box springs on the beds are covered with plastic. That won’t solve the problem, but it will help keep the bed bugs from getting through the barrier to the mattress or your body.
If you bring bed bugs home with you from a vacation or by any other means, there are things that you can do to get rid of them. One way is to use a natural product containing food grade diatomaceous earth. It is deadly to bed bugs and other troublesome insects because it dehydrates them by cutting through their exoskeleton. Diatomaceous earth is safe to use and will kill what bed bugs you have.

By: Bradley Skierkowski